Ex-tenant threatening legal action over parking?

Ex-tenant threatening legal action over parking?

10:13 AM, 14th September 2020, About 4 years ago 13

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A tenant that has recently vacated one of our properties left the place in such a state that we said we would need to keep some of his deposit to cover deep cleaning and removal of many items left behind. His deposit is with ‘My Deposit’ – all arranged by the agent that lets out the property.

Obviously disgruntled by this, the tenant has written a letter to my home address which he found on the Land registry with the title ‘Notice of intended legal action’. The action is related to various complaints the tenant has against the way the agent dealt with past issues he had since the beginning of his tenancy in December 2017.

I cannot comment on most of the issues with the agent as I am not aware of the issues he supposedly had but I will say that any property maintenance issues he had that I was made aware of by the agent were dealt with immediately by me. The most bizarre issue which I remember him complaining about at the beginning of the tenancy was that the off-road parking at the property had a camber that interfered with the parking of his vehicle. He mentioned at the time that he was wondering if he could alter the camber to accommodate his vehicle.

We presumed he had a very low vehicle as we had ourselves previously parked our SLK on there many times and tenants before him never complained about this. We mentioned this to the agent and didn’t hear about the issue again for the whole time he lived there. Now he has brought this up in the letter to us stating that the property should not be marketed as having off-road parking and complaining that he had had to obtain a parking permit, park on the road and had his car damaged by passers-by.

He suggests that the rent he was paying should have been reduced due to the fact he couldn’t park his car there satisfactorily. The mind boggles, why would he stay there for 2 and a half years if he was not happy? I am very unhappy with this threat of legal action – particularly as during a period when he failed to pay the rent on time due to financial difficulties we were very lenient and understanding and agreed to let him pay when he could.

I have now got to speak to the agent to discuss the letter but just wondered if anyone has any thoughts on this. Is the tenant able to sue me or the agent as they were managing the tenancy? This is the closing paragraph:

‘While the claim value of the deposit is fixed at £1730, the total claim value will be marked as ‘unspecified’ on the N1 form in order to allow the Judge discretion in ordering any multiples of the deposit value as penalties, and any order of compensation for the above breaches, totalling no more than £10,000. The total value or rent, deposit and fees paid between December 2017 – August 2020 equates to approx. £41,400.’

Any helpful comments welcome, please.

Nancy


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Comments

Mike T

20:22 PM, 14th September 2020, About 4 years ago

Surely when a tenant inspects the property and judges that it is suitable for his needs, and accepts the tenancy, offered by the landlord, by paying a deposit and a months rent in advance, it must be too late 2.5 years later to complain about the driveway.
He is certainly trying it on. If you have followed all the required procedures I would suggest writing (Without Prejudice ) to acknowledge receipt of his letter and say that you look forward to hearing formally from his solicitor.

Jim

10:54 AM, 19th September 2020, About 4 years ago

I didn't know it was possible to find out where someone lives or even owns a property from the land registry. So is it possible to find out what properties a person owns just by having their full name? I would be very interested to know the answer to that one. I would check that your deposit was registered within 30 days as it seems that this is one of his claims.

Badger

12:32 PM, 19th September 2020, About 4 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Jim S at 19/09/2020 - 10:54
If you know the address of the property then you can find out the registered proprietor by paying a small fee to download the title document from the Land Registry web site.

The privilege of searching for all of the properties owned by a given person is one reserved to the police and other official enquirers.

I believe it is possible (but don't quote me) to have your ownership details redacted but you probably have to have a good excuse to request this.

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